No Strings Attached (22 page)

Harper nudged the kickstand, set the bike against the wall, and tried not to be intrigued by that last little nugget. Too bad she actually was, and Katie caught on quickly.

Besides, she was hungry, and intuitive Katie flipped open her cell phone and—before Harper could decide what to do—was saying, “Is this Mystic Pizza of Hyannis? I'd like to order a large pie, half veggie, half pepperoni, a Dr Pepper, and, hold on.” She turned to Harper. “What do you want to drink?”

A half hour later, the two sat cross-legged on the living room floor, hunched around two upside-down wooden crates Joss had brought home that served as the coffee table.

Still, Katie used silverware to daintily cut her pizza slice into bite-size pieces on a real plate. Harper eschewed utensils, just folding a slice whole and devouring it, letting the cheese drip where it may.

“So, look,” Katie said, “what I'm about to tell you is very, very private. You have to swear you won't tell anyone.”

Only because she was mid-chew did Harper not retort, “And yet? I'm willing to bet it's very, very superficial and insipid.” Wiping her mouth, she went with the gentler, “So why are you sharing now?”

Katie hesitated. “Maybe I care what you think of me.”

Right. Maybe George W. Bush will learn to pronounce “nuclear.”

“And maybe,” Katie continued, sipping at her soda, “I care that you got hurt because of me. Is that so hard to believe?”

“Pretty much,” Harper acknowledged, slurping spring water from the bottle.

That wasn't entirely true. Even
she
had to admit Katie'd displayed some true grit, especially that night they all schlepped to that godforsaken warehouse to rescue Mandy. Being a stuck-up Boston blue blood hadn't sucked up her soul. Not entirely, anyway. Still, Harper was wary of Katie's confession motivation.

“C'mon, cut me some slack. If I explain stuff, maybe you won't hate me so much. Besides …” Katie drew a breath and closed her eyes. Like even she couldn't face what she was about to say.

“Yeah?” Harper prompted.

“I could use a friend. I don't seem to have very many.”

Harper knew she should just shut up and let Katie vent. Sarcasm trumped manners. “What about Lily-the-boyfriend-slayer? Is the vapid vixen no longer on the VIP list for your debutante ball?”

“Harsh.” Katie's voice broke.

What? Katie, on the verge of … an actual tear? Harper would not have thought her capable. Pinched by a twinge of guilt, she concentrated on her pizza slice.

Katie's eyes misted. “For one thing, there probably won't be a debutante ball.”

The crust nearly flew from Harper's mouth. It was all she could do to keep from bursting out laughing. Oh, no! Poor Katie-pooh. No deb ball? This was The Kick's big trauma?

“I don't have any money. I'm not sure there's enough to make it through Trinity next year.”

Intriguing, thought Harper. “Okay, I'll play. Where's all the moolah? Mom and Dad cut you off or something?”

A tear slid from Katie's manga-like eyes. “Not Mom. She doesn't even know.”

“Know what?”

Katie pushed her plate away and cut a glance toward the door. “My father made some bad deals at the bank. He's being indicted for fraud.”

Whoa. Serious stuff.

“When it happens,” Katie continued, “it's all over. The money will be gone, the house seized, everything—my trust fund, college savings—my credit cards totally cut off. It'll be very public, all over the TV. Everyone will know.”

Harper lost her appetite suddenly. Is that why Katie-bird had ended up in this dump? She asked, “Is it going down this summer? Is that why you're here?”

Katie tensed. She swiped her plate off the makeshift coffee table and started to get up, but changed her mind, set it
down. “It hasn't happened yet. My parents are on a cruise, and Lily told me the staff is still running the house. I don't know when it's going to happen, only that it will.”

It's like, thought Harper, when you blink your eyes and everything blurry turns painfully sharp and clear. Like a code unscrambled, a stuck-between-stations radio dial finding a clear signal, a missing puzzle piece found. A picture formed, neither pretty nor cool, and least of all “Kick-y.”

Katie lifted her chin. She didn't appreciate being pitied. “This was supposed to be my summer to deal, to salvage my life. With Lily's help, I would've figured something out. I'm sure of it.”

Ouch. One-two punch. First her dad blindsides her, then her flinty friend bails. Harper almost felt sorry for her. No wait … Harper
did
feel sorry for her.

Until Katie answered. Harper's carefully worded, “I'm not doubting you, but how can you be sure of all this?”

Turned out—hello!—to be the way Katie uncovered all sorts of dirt, including how she knew the history between Luke and Harper. She spied, eavesdropped, read people's journals, and in this case, hacked into her dad's private computer files. “My whole life is over,” Katie whined.

To Harper? It seemed like Katie's
parents'
lives were, in fact, the ones taking a dive. Katie wasn't thinking about them. All she cared about was resuming her rockin' life as queen bee
of Trinity High. The imminent downsizing of her social-slash-economic status clashed with her life plan.

So, ladies and gentlemen, Katie-acolytes of all ages, mused Harper, we can do the one thing The Kick cannot do: hack it when reality bites, when the going gets genuinely tough.

Katie was trying, though.

She detailed Plan Awesome for Harper. While living the high life in Lily's aunt's freebie mansion, they'd be piling up coin, earned by the counselor job, tips, plus what Katie could scam off rich boyfriends. If “the fraud thing,” as Katie called it, didn't go down anytime soon, she could make it through most of her senior year at Trinity, head held high. No one in school would be the wiser.

Then, she could split, pay her own way to college if she had to, and not be around when shame came down on the House of Charlesworth.

And if it happened before high school graduation? Maybe, Harper offered naively, Katie could get a scholarship, financial assistance for senior year? The school, she knew well, was generous with that sort of thing.

Katie was shocked, stunned, furious at the temerity of the suggestion. “Are you kidding? Are you insane? Me—an object of pity? People looking down their snooty noses at me? What are you thinking?”

Harper was thinking that karma was real. That Katie had
spent the past three years sneering at “pitiable” people, at the losers, the feebs, the “fringe.” She could dish it out all right, but the prospect of being on the other end was unfathomable. This wass the petty world Katie had created at Trinity, or at least perpetrated. Harper thought this was pretty much justice.

But Harper wasn't dumb enough, or mean enough, to say that to Katie's face.

Katie whined on mournfully. “Our house is as good as gone. If it happens while I'm at Trinity, I'll have to go live in some apartment or something. And everyone will know.”

“So, that'd be the worst of it?” Harper dared inquire, picturing the cozy crib she and her mom shared.

Katie's face got very, very red. “What part of all this don't you understand? I will not have my entire life ruined because my stupid father turns out to be a thief! I've worked too long and too hard. I deserve the best clothes, the best crowd, the best”—she fumbled, pausing to think—“accessories!” she finally blurted.

Harper was astonished. You really could not overestimate Katie's superficiality.

Warming to her subject, Katie's whining intensified. “I deserve to make my debutante ball, to wear Vera Wang to the prom, to show up with someone worthy, in college and rich, like Brian or Nate. This is my senior year! I refuse to let my parents' shame be mine.”

Snap!
That
was the moment Harper stopped feeling sorry for Katie. She had to ask, “What about your mom? She knows nothing?”

“She lives in perma-denial.” Katie waved dismissively.

“So you'd just abandon her? When the thing goes down, you'd skip out?”

“Maybe I can rack up enough credits to get into college early—or something—I am so outta that scene. Whatever it takes, really.”

“Your mother would be alone,” Harper couldn't help pointing out. “It doesn't sound like coping is her strong suit.”

Coldly, Katie responded, “She's never had to cope. She's all about the lifestyle, and it hasn't failed her.”

“Knock,
knock
!” Harper said sharply, banging her fist down on the crate. “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the most deluded of them all? You have no respect for your own mother, yet you're all about following in her Manolos. Socialite, heal thyself!”

“You're mocking me?” Katie challenged. “You think this is some trite thing? You think it's no big deal?”

“That's the saddest part, Katherine. I think it
is
a very big deal. And the way you're reacting to it? Makes you as shallow and self-serving as any human being who's ever pranced across the planet.”

The Kick's knee-jerk reaction was to kick herself for confiding
in Harper. The frizzy-haired freak wore her fringe label like some badge of honor. Katie's first impression of Harper had not changed a whit all summer.

Except for this: what Harper had said to her? It
killed
. Killed in the way only the truth can.

“Denial much?” she asked herself as she furiously scrubbed the dishes in the kitchen sink—a few were her own, but never-thoughtful Ali had left an impressive pile of pots, plates, and silverware. How sad was it that Katie welcomed even this diversion? She didn't bother putting rubber gloves on.

That was supposed to be a bonding conversation with Harper. Katie had finally decided maybe Harper could help her. Her whole confession should have drawn her quirky
roommate to her side! But no! Like everything with that girl, it had turned into a confrontation. Much as Katie took pains to explain, Harper stubbornly refused to see things her way.

Okay, so maybe Katie lost her cool more than once, maybe her voice betrayed her frustration. “You don't get it!” she'd railed at Harper. “Why would you? Unlike you, I'm
someone
at Trinity. I've earned the crown of homecoming queen and prom queen. I'm going to an Ivy League school, and then I will marry very, very well. I refuse to let anything change that.”

But Harper had only cracked, “So your goal in life is to become a Desperate Housewife, a total cliché.”

“No!” Katie had countered, kicking the cabinet beneath the sink now. “I won't be my mother. I'm the smart one. I won't be hoodwinked.”

How could she think someone like Harper would get her? No matter how much Katie tried to make her see the righteousness of her cause, Harper was like a broken record. “What about your mother?”

“What about her?”

“Don't you think she'd need you?” Harper stared with those unnerving gray-blue peepers.

“Need me? What could I do for her?” Katie had shot back.

“You could be her daughter. You could be supportive. Besides, you're the brilliant Charlesworth, you know how to
cope. Why not use some of that kick-ass talent when it counts?”

Katie's bow lips formed a straight line. “Save the Disney Channel schmaltz for some naïf,” she'd advised Harper. “My mother boarded her private jet a long time ago—and the cabin doors have closed. It's too late to go all ‘me and mom against the world.'”

Harper just kept shaking her head. “You're a piece of work, Katie Charlesworth,”

“You think I'm horrible.”

Harper's response cut. “I think you've been so busy spying on other people, you haven't taken time to figure yourself out, and what's really best for you—the real you.”

Katie'd countered miserably, “You still don't understand. When it happens, I won't be able to face anyone—Lily, the kids at school.”

“That doesn't matter. As long as you can face yourself. Can you?”

She stared into the sparkling clean, albeit stained and cracked, porcelain sink. That was a question Katie could not answer.

It was late when Katie returned to the share house. She'd borrowed (without asking) a pair of Harper's broken-in sneakers and had trolled the neighborhood, circled the tiny boxlike
houses, noted the (eww…) cheap cars parked in neat driveways, and observed, when the window shades weren't drawn, the other residents of Cranberry Lane.

She'd never thought about them before—just random Cape Codders whose lives would never intersect with hers. Now, she was facing the possibility of being one of them. How did you even do that? Katie wondered. What do you do if you're without credit cards, designer duds, Escalades, and cool parties? How could you live in a house like this, so cramped you'd be too ashamed to invite anyone over. She couldn't wrap her brain around it.

Lily understood the terror Katie felt.

Harper did not.

Katie wasn't finished trying to force Harper to get it.

No cars were in their lame excuse for a driveway, which meant Mitch and Joss were out, but Ali was obviously home, evidenced by her pilly sweater on the floor by the staircase. If Mandy was around, you'd know it. Katie didn't hear her.

Katie marched into the room she shared with Harper, found her sitting up in bed, reading by the lamp on her night table. She'd meant to say something deep, to force Harper to understand what she was going through. But all that came out was, “What are you reading?”

Harper held the book up.
The Color Purple
, by Alice Walker.

“Any good?” Katie asked, not having heard of it.